21 April 2014

Marmorkrebs are potential vectors for crayfish plague, which is caused by Aphanomyces astaci. This pathogen devastated European crayfish since being introduced along with North American crayfish.

Now, we find out it’s not just crayfish that it can infect. A new paper by Svoboda and colleagues shows it can infect freshwater crabs, like the land crab Potamon potamios (pictured) and the Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis. The crabs appear to be more resistant to the infection than European crayfish, making the problem that the crabs are potential spreaders of disease than sufferers from it.